The Colour Of Sunlight
by ShuttupMalfoy
Summary: The story takes place during the Second Wizarding War. After failing to kill a nameless victim during a Death Eater raid, Draco Malfoy is caught in a turn of events that cause him to reflect on his war experiences, his personality, and the life and nature of a villain. Get to know the mask behind the mask.
1. I

**Note: _The story is told from a severely damaged young man's perspective. Do forgive him the self-absorbed, jaded, appalling cynicism it contains. _**

_I._

It was a chilling night outside. One of those nights that turn your guts upside down. The kind of night that makes the shadows in the room grow longer, and the darkness outside feel thicker. A night when you're so afraid to die that your hands are itching to kill.

I went out in the front yard of the Manor and felt chills running down my spine despite the warm evening breeze. On a night like this, you freeze over. No breeze, no sunlight, no season can get to you.

Every day was the same. It had been this way for months now.

An explosion of blackness briefly scattered the chill of the night. My father. He marched towards me, pulling down his mask, and beckoned me closer with an imperative gesture. A moment later, Mother spun to a halt next to me.

'Ready, sweetheart?' she croaked. I shrugged.

'As always,' I replied in a hollow voice. A long time had passed since her presence managed to calm me down. These days, nothing did.

'I take it you're not, then,' my father translated with crude irony, never giving up on his futile attempts to toughen me up. 'The mask. He'll be calling any minute.'

"Such a punctual family we are," I thought. The chills were already creeping up my throat.

'I don't want to,' I managed. Father eyed me icily underneath his mask.

'Don't make this any more difficult than it already is,' he snarled. 'The mask. Quickly.'

I obeyed and summoned the mask into my hand. What else could I do? Being tough is harder than people think. In the days of the war, we slept with one eye open... if only not to have to suffer the nightmares. It was all the same. Reality was much harsher.

'Sweetheart –' Mother began, and then I felt it.

I clenched my fists to endure the pain in the Mark. I never got used to it, hard as I tried. It crept across the arm like a blush made of agony, starting out innocent and escalating to unbearable. The Lord was calling. It was time to go.

I saw Mother looking at me in that familiar way, as if she was checking if I was about to fall apart. Of course I was; we all were, but it never showed on her face. It wasn't the same with Father – his face was so corpse-like he didn't need to wear a mask. Me, I avoided looking in the mirror of late. It had developed the habit of looking back at me.

'The mask! Now!' Father fired.

'I don't want to,' I repeated, shaking.

'Do you want to go to jail?' he bellowed at me. 'Do you want to know what it feels like?'

Convulsively, I slid the silver plate over my eyes. It was like putting on a different face. Through the metal, I stared at the night sky. Here we were, all gathered up. Aunt Bella couldn't be far ahead. All these stars that we were named after... Do they die? Do they ever have to wonder how dark it would be when all their lights go out?

It was then that the light of the stars was obliterated by a flash of green in the sky. Without another word, we Disapparated, Reapparated again and started running.

My legs propelled me after Father, who was taking the lead, and quickly sped me up across a dewy meadow. "I love my legs," I thought through the blur of the terror. After all this time, they had remained the only sane part of me. When panic struck, they alone knew what to do.

The three of us plunged into the darkness, dashing past dark wooden cottages like we were running for our lives. Some of them were on fire. Judging by that and the Mark in the sky, Aunt Bella had already been here. I felt light as I ran, even though my lungs were screaming for air and my joins were protesting against the pressure. I only felt relief when trying to outrace the fear...

'The one on the left!' Father screamed, pointing at a house in the distance. 'And don't mess it up!'

Mother had already dived into the shadows. I followed, much to the distress of my feet, to a cottage that had yet remained untouched. I tried to shut my brain down as we skipped over bodies on the meadow burnt to black. Yes, Aunt Bella had _definitely_ been here...

My stomach urged me to stop and vomit, but my parents' shouts compelled me to do otherwise. They were already flinging curses at the cottage. That was right – we had debts to pay, our family... hell to pay was more like it, which was just a few flames more than what the mudbloods in these cottages would pay for their existence...

Father blasted the front door open with a spell. 'To the back!' he yelled at me through the roar of the explosion. 'Check for survivors!'

By the time I went in, half the house was already burning. I Apparated in the kitchen, the attic, the primitive bathroom while my parents were doing their business in the living room. There was a dog upstairs, in the bedroom, that snapped its jaws at me before I Disapparated. Dimly, through the air clogged with smoke, I noticed its teeth had left scarlet marks on my forearm. I didn't feel the pain until I saw them.

At the sight of blood, a red veil clouded my vision that had nothing to do with the fire. It happened each time I felt a tad too vulnerable, a step over the edge. The Lord had helped me discover it while teaching me to torture people. In the end, something eventually snaps and you're starting to like it. Better them than you, right? And when the red curtains fall, there's no more stage fright...

I stormed into the cellar praying to leave this place as soon as possible. The red haze was now in my lungs, spreading faster than the smoke. Alas, a thud came from behind me and I realized I wasn't alone in the cellar.

There was a silhouette staggering across the room with their back facing me, struggling to make their way through the barrels of liquor stacked on the wooden floor. I froze. My legs saw some sense and ventured to step away, but my arm ignored ignored their plea and raised my wand on its own accord. The beast was kicking in. There were to be no survivors and no hostages. And the pressure of the months of war was begging to be let out...

The outline of the figure was female, smaller than mine. She still hadn't seen me in the dancing shadows. An easy prey... With the mask on, it was okay to do it: to strike fear into others in order to let go of your own, to take life in order not to risk losing yours. And the more you did what the mask told you to do, the more you became more of the mask and less of yourself. Behind the mask, guilt couldn't touch me. And right now, in that pathetic smoky cellar, I wanted nothing more than to kill that unsuspecting victim, to leave no one alive...

...but reason stopped me; the cellar was full of barrels of liquor. If I blew that girl to pieces, we'd both fry into a heatwave of raging flames. No, it was best to do it quick and clean, with a killing curse. It wasn't my specialty, but there was a first time for everything, right? And, come to think of it, there were fates worse than death. After all, we Malfoys died every day. You know how they say the coward dies a thousand times in his mind? Well, so does the villain. And tonight it was going to be my two thousand and first time dying...

...and my first time killing.

I could see the girl shaking in her plain clothes, and as she slowly turned around, I took a step aside to remain in the shadows. The horrid ecstasy of the wait was indescribable. The mask made you believe you were capable of anything... and I wanted it, I genuinely wanted it, and I found myself wanting something more. The heat of the fire was melting away the remains of my sanity. I was losing my mind and losing control. This was my first time... this was special... and I wanted her to see my face...

My available hand went up to my face, smearing bloodstains over the surface of my mask. I slipped it off soundlessly and tucked it into my pocket. I held my wand at the ready and deliberately made a noisy step towards her. She didn't stand a chance. I saw her turn around abruptly –

– and an explosion upstairs sprayed splinters and bits of ceiling over our heads. Father ws obviously having fun in the living room.

It wasn't a big explosion – it took me a bit more than a second to recover from the surprise. A second, however, was all it took.

A killer usually counts on the element of surprise. The victim glanced at me – and the look in her eyes surprised me.

I blinked at her in hesitation about my line – even though the right one could only have been "Avada Kedavra". Before I could find the words to curse her, she lowered her wand and pressed a finger to her lips.

And, between you and me, it's a very disconcerting gesture to aim at your assaulter.

'Shh,' she pronounced almost soundlessly. 'They might hear you.'

A second explosion from upstairs shook the walls of the cellar and showered more sooted splinters over my head. I thought I saw myself leaping away; you never knew with the red veil around you.

'Hide,' the victim whispered to me, another fraction of conversation that was meaningless to me. She waved a hand towards a stained corner of the floor. 'This way!'

My mind was numb, but my legs – to my own astonishment – obeyed. The girl pointed to a trap door in the floor. The ceiling was now pouring fire and ember. My folks probably thought I was out.

'Where are we going?' I asked on autopilot through the scarlet haze.

'Would you rather stay here and die?' the girl retorted, nodding fiercely at the breaches of flames in the walls and then at the barrels. 'Hurry!'

'We could just put it out,' I muttered absently. I felt nothing. Then, just a moment later, I felt her grab my hand.

'No time! They're coming!'

A small portion of my brain snapped out of it. Right, my parents...

'They could get hurt,' I murmured to myself, ignorant of the now crumbling ceiling. The girl tugged feverishly at my hand.

'Better them than us, right? Come on!'

As I followed her down the trap door in the floor, I felt the urge to spill her blood all over the passage stairs. I felt my wand hand twitch again. I gritted my teeth...

...and then she turned to look at me, her eyes blazing hotter than the fire we were leaving behind:

'You alright?'

I stare back at her, dumbstruck. In my current state, I couldn't possibly process the meaning of the question. Her words were just noise in my ears. I was left, however, speechless by her stare. Only now did I get a proper look at it. I had never seen one like hers. There was no fear in her eyes, but there was fire, dark and pure and white-hot, and it had the power to go through a brick wall.

It was the fire of a person who wouldn't give up the fight long after it was lost. She gave me the look of the sole survivor of hell and I realized, in an instant, that she was everything that I wasn't.

'I'm scared,' I heard myself utter.

In response, the girl held my hand tighter, and as soon as she did so, I got a familiar sting in the other – my parents' reminder through the Mark: "We're out, what's taking you so long?"

'It'll pass,' the girl promised, and I was shocked at the sincerity of her statement: she actually believed the nightmare wouldn't last forever... 'Let's get out of here, what are you waiting for?'

My parents were probably thinking the same this very moment. I had to make a choice...

...and I had lied. I hadn't told my victim the whole truth. Yes, I was scared. Then again, I also intended to kill her. And on top of that, I was strangely mesmerized...

I had to get the job done and get out. Otherwise the Lord would hunt me down and destroy me. But that wasn't on my mind right then. If I did go back, on the other hand, then what? The nightmare would continue according to script. The masks would never be taken off, the fear would never drain. In many ways, that was a fate worse than death. And when the caged bird soars towards freedom, does it care that it might be killed out in the open?

This could be my first night of not dying inside since forever...

I remember squeezing the hand squeezing mine and Disapparating with my victim.

Now, the fire was behind us.

And the night lay ahead.


	2. II

_II. _

The night was warm, but it felt chilly in comparison with the heat of the fire. We arrived at a small abandoned village of some sort. I took a breath of foreign air and the red haze started to withdraw.

'They won't find us here,' the girl announced. 'I made us untraceable. Are you wounded?'

I didn't answer. I glanced at my arm and then at my victim as if I was seeing each for the first time. The blood on my forearm was drying, and some memories trickled back into my head.

I knew I could inform my parents of my whereabouts if I wanted to, but... I was feeling oddly free here, without them, taking a breath outside the life of a Death Eater. All this time I had silently despised them for what I went through because of them. I was bent and twisted and broken until I became a very near copy of them. But the part of me that obstinately refused to be melted into the mask was still struggling. And it was gaining strength at the turn of events. It was _glad_ to be away from my parents. Sooner or later, I knew I'd end up running away. I couldn't be moulded into a monster, because I broke too easily. I took another breath and felt the mask heavy in my pocket. I was tired of bearing this burden –

'I asked if you were wounded,' the girl spoke meanwhile in the tone of voice used in conversing with people with brain concussions.

I kept blinking at her like an imbecile. No distrust in her eyes, just concern. Had I really just been imagining brains splattered on a floor on fire?

'I'm fine,' I managed, and threw up at her feet.

I was about to fall flat on the grass, but I felt two gentle hands across my chest.

'Yeah, I can see,' I heard her say beside me. 'It happens to everyone, don't worry. Just let it out and you'll feel better.'

But I couldn't let it out. I had to grit my teeth to fight back the tears. I felt myself for the first time in ages, and I was terrified. For the past few months, it had been the mask making all my decisions for me. Was I really about to kill this stranger? No, this wasn't me... I was raised to avoid and despise mudbloods at best, not kill them... or maybe I was, but the message hadn't sunk in properly... I was shaking all over, scared to death of myself, and yet this mudblood wasn't scared of me at all...

'Are you alright now?' she asked, facing me with a stare – no, not one of pity; the emotion it conveyed could rather pass as optimism had it not been so hardened by life.

Now that the madness was draining away, I felt an unlikely rush of shyness come over me. No one had asked me this since it all began, not even my parents. Perhaps they were afraid of the answer.

'Been worse,' I went with the truth.

'I understand,' the girl replied, to my further bafflement. 'You must have been on the run a lot. Clever idea, dressing up as one of them to avoid being persecuted.'

I glanced up to look at her, trying to shake off the faintness. The fire in her eyes was still there, no longer scorching, but warm and cozy, like the one in the family fireplace... or _someone_'s fireplace, either way; ours hadn't inspired much safety lately.

'How do you know I'm not one of the bad guys?' I spat out hollowly. The mudblood laughed.

'You? Please. You're not much older than I am. I know the face of a villain when I see one.'

I briefly wondered what my face looked like. Certainly worse than hers, I had to assume. The girl appeared to be much more in control than I was feeling. And she was – for a presumable mudblood, that is – quite appealing. I wouldn't believe her to be one of them if I didn't know in advance: she didn't act like one in the slightest. There was something dignified about her expression; not proud and not shallow, just a kind of firmness that inspired respect. And she had the features of a dark witch: she was pale, dark-haired and slender, with a certain restlessness about her gleaming brown eyes, the one a muggle-born could never hope to fake. Those were the eyes of a person who had seen unbearable horrors and had made them a part of their soul. I knew the face of a villain when I saw one too, and she had it.

The rest of her – to the extent I could distinguish underneath her plain clothes – was thin and somewhat fragile. She drew a hand through her hair, a hand so white and small and delicate that it looked like it was made of glass. If someone were to hold it, would it break? And yet it had held mine so firmly not long ago...

'So,' she went on, interrupting my analysis, 'where did you come from, anyway?'

The question caught me unprepared.

'I, er...' I broke off. My hands renewed their shaking. The girl probably decided it was the shock.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to – I just meant to ask how long you were on the run...'

'I'm fine,' I hurried to put on a brave mask, and added: 'Quite some time now, actually...'

What on earth am I talking about, I thought. The girl nodded grimly in response.

'Me too. Since the winter. And, tell you the truth, it hasn't been easy. All this time I spent trying to conceal my parents... They're Muggles, as you might have guesses. Quite inconvenient,' the stranger said with a crooked smile, 'but you can't choose your parents, right?'

I found myself nodding. I knew better than anyone.

'What about yours?' the girl inquired. I froze.

'What about them?'

'Well, you know, since you're on the run too, I figured –'

'I don't have to tell _you_,' I fired on the defense.

'Right,' she agreed curtly; then, for a short while, appeared slightly embarrassed. 'You're perfectly right. If they find and torture us, the less we know about each other, the better.'

"If they find us, they'll make _me_ torture _you_," I thought, and to my surprise, I shuddered at the thought. To my still greater surprise, her statement disappointed me a bit – I wanted to know more about her. I was curious.

And something in me stirred. 'How can you be so calm?' I ventured. 'Your parents –'

'Aw, come on,' the girl raised a curved eyebrow, 'do you think I'm that stupid? My parents weren't in the house that just burned down. I've hidden them well, believe me.'

'But then – the people in the cottage –'

'They were transfigured ghouls. I spent ages working on the details. Are you feeling better yet?'

I think she saw my face turn to stone. When the Lord discovered that we had failed yet another mission, he'd skin us all alive...

'What?' I stammered. 'Oh, no, it's just –'

'Hey,' she interrupted, and encouragingly placed her little porcelain hand on mine. 'Hang in there. Trust me, you will be alright.'

Her hand was cold, but next to my freezing skin it felt fiery. I tried to withdraw mine, but couldn't bring myself to do it.

I found myself overflowing with long-forgotten emotions. Curiosity was just the tip of the iceberg. I had not been faced with kindness and comfort in a dreadfully long while, and kindness coming from a stranger was something I'd never so far come across in life. I was a Malfoy, after all: we weren't kind to anybody and nobody was kind to us. But this girl wasn't seeing a villain in me. It was unexpectedly relieving. So why not play along for a little while?

As I thought about it, I was refusing to see her as a mudblood. It just wasn't an idea my mind could embrace. Have you ever tried not to feel prejudiced about someone and failed? Well, I was feeling the exact opposite of it.

My future was bleaker than ever, I knew that. But now, being subjected to a warm human touch, my problems seemed a universe away. Her touch evoked in me a longing for affection. I had not experienced this in so long I believed I had forgotten feel it. But if I was still capable of feeling something other than fear, there was still hope, right? Right now, I was sponging comfort off her touch while it lasted; I wished it would never end; I was so desperate I craved to be held by anyone, anyone at all, even if it was, as it were, a mudblood...

The girl removed her hand a few moments later, possibly because I was staring at it as though I was hypnotized.

'Sorry', she hurried to say. It shocked me, and her sudden shyness made the spontaneous contact appear all too personal. 'Er, I was going to offer you shelter, but you probably already have a backup plan, so...'

'I'm still working on it,' I confessed. I was reluctant to let her hand go away.

'Oh,' the girl seemed to be battling herself. 'Well, I've got a hideout nearby, in case you don't want to sleep out in the open. It's got running water and everything.'

'Sure,' I blurted out, and ventured to add a thanks, but what was left of my pride didn't let me.

'I don't mean anything by it, of course,' the mudblood added.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Well, I'm not hoping for any funny stuff,' the girl explained in a voice stern yet incapable of concealing her shyness. 'And neither should you.'

I wasn't sure if it was the right time to wonder whether I was hoping for funny stuff or not, so I muttered:

'Of course. Er, I don't have any money on me at the moment, but –'

The girl silenced me with a stare. 'Being on the run has really messed you up,' she said. 'You need to put some cold water on your face. Come on.'

I followed her mechanically through the tall dark grass, counting the parts of my body that needed cold water. I traced her footsteps into the heart of the village. It felt completely uninhabited and was even more primitive than the one my parents and I had just raided. It had to bear a name such as Middle Dumberton or something of the sort. Judging by the look of it, the Death Eaters had been here months ago. It was a clever hideout, I had to admit – only an idiot would think of returning to the scene of the attack.

The mudblood led me into a house no different from the rest of the village. It was half run-down, with holes gaping in the door frames, but the wooden stairs to the second floor were miraculously still intact. I strained my ears for the sound of running water, but registered none.

'No magic here,' the girl announced as we advanced through the stale air. 'Otherwise we'd risk being discovered. I know it's not much, but it's enough to make do for a day or two. The doors are blasted off, as you can see, and I haven't bothered repairing them since I don't usually expect company, but for you I could stretch a curtain or two...' She met my carried away gaze scrutinizingly. 'Look, I really think you need to freshen up...'

'I'm fine,' I insisted automatically. Her stare, however, didn't waver.

'Don't argue with me. It happens to everyone, the aftershock. Mine usually comes a few hours late. Come on, I'll show you to the bathroom.'

She had to smack the tap to make the water run rather than drip, then adjusted me in front of the sink. To my infinite relief, there was no mirror hanging above it.

'Well, I'll leave you to it, then,' she said, and left me to myself in the bathroom.

The darkness there was only scattered by a shred of moonlight oozing through a hole blown in the wall. I spent a long time frozen in the bathroom, thinking. To my surprise, I felt alright, albeit a little dizzy. The girl believed to be saving my skin... but was it really a skin worth saving?

Speaking of skin, mine stung in the Mark area, making me stifle a gasp. "What's happening?" I felt Mother call through the Mark. "I'm safe," I replied, touching the burning tattoo gently. The stinging was reduced to slight irritation.

"Where are you?" Father insisted. I hesitated.

"Can't say right now. Are you and Mother fine?"

"Yes," my father's answer scorched my arm. "We found no survivors. What happened to you?"

I trailed off a second time. Something urged me to keep them away for the time being.

"Long story. Don't worry. I'll keep in touch."

With these words, I broke off the connection. I craved a few moments of privacy, with no Death Eaters breathing down my neck. I stood there like a statue, letting my mind wander. There was no sound around me. I spent a few minutes looking out into the night with a hand on my zipper – a luxury in the war days, when you had to be a quick pisser if you wanted to live. Nobody wants to die with their pants down, and in those days the chance to take a piss was the difference between cowardice and courage. But this was not the issue this time. I was overflowing with mixed thrills: horror, relief, excitement, elation, and it wasn't easy to tell one from the other...

Needless to say, since the second war had begun, there weren't many happy occasions for a Death Eater to unzip his fly. The very idea of a private life went out the window, leaving nothing but ice-cold terror in its place. Normally, I had no time to think of anything other than survival. But now, when I was very nearly me, I saw an opportunity to break the habit...

The first attempt was relatively futile. It gave me the feeling that I wasn't even there and, if anything, only made me nauseous. How do you go about your private life when all you can think about is death?

No, that wasn't the right way to do it. I sighed and listened for a sound around. The mudblood wasn't anywhere near. She was clearly taking my seclusion seriously, the frail porcelain girl with her winding dark hair, her exquisite face and slender body, and the fire in her eyes that could strip the skin off your flesh...

I shuddered and hurried to grab the sink with both hands. The sensation had frightened me more than anything that night. I had felt something – no, not mere surprise or hope or loneliness, I actually physically felt something, a long-lost thrill provoked by the thought of the stranger I had just met, and though it had lasted a mere second, it was so real and wonderful it was scary...

'Um... excuse me... hey? Are you alright in there?'

I winced at the sound of the girl's voice coming from outside the bathroom door. That's what they called "caught red-handed," no doubt...

'Sorry,' I heard her call and decided it was high time I put some cold water on my face... and everywhere, for that matter. 'I didn't want to disturb you... but you took a long time and I didn't hear a sound, and I thought you were maybe feeling queasy or something...'

'I'm alright,' I stammered in panic, trying to wash away the blush.

'Look, if you need some help with it, I could give you a hand...'

Her words, innocent in nature, were entering my head with a completely different meaning.

'...or a toothbrush, it usually does the trick...'

I marched out of the bathroom as presentable as possible in the circumstances, water dripping down my face.

'Thanks, but I feel much better now,' I assured her without a trace of an expression.

'Oh... well... in that case...' the girl seemed briefly lost for words. 'I can't offer you any food, regrettably... but I could show you to your room, so to speak...'

The room was chilly due to the obligatory hole in the wall, but there were blankets. The mudblood hung one of them over the gap for the sake of decency rather than warmth. I noticed she was in a hurry to say goodnight and leave.

"You're sick in the head, Draco Malfoy," I was thinking later while lying alone in the moth-eaten bed. "Do you derive some sort of twisted satisfaction out of this? Even your father would vomit if he knew! A mudblood!"

"On the other hand, she was terribly kind to you," I added to myself with scorn. "She got you out of the fire, she welcome you in her hideout... and you lied to her about who you truly are – well, not really, but you tricked her, didn't you? And on top of that, you bloody well know what you're thinking of, and you promised no funny stuff, and _that_'s classic lying and you know it..."

Technically, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. I had not _planned_ to deceive her about that last part. I just couldn't control it. It was a decision of the body, not the mind – and that was why I prepared to go to sleep with my hands firmly underneath the pillow. I couldn't trust them.

There was no doubt – I had officially lost my mind. Then again, if I had known that it would feel so good, I'd have gone insane long ago.

I seemed to have only just closed my eyes when there was a knock on the wall beside what was supposed to be a door.

'I'm sorry... can I come in?'

I sat bolt upright in the bed.

'Yeah,' I blurted out, not knowing what to think.

The girl slipped into the room with a strangely somber expression on her face. She looked like she would burst out crying if she didn't know it was pointless.

'Sorry to wake you up,' she began nervously, 'but, er... I was wondering if you were comfortable here...'

'What do you mean?' I fired not much more calmly.

'Well, you know how it is,' she went on sadly, 'life on the run and everything... it gets lonely. You know what I mean, don't you? The shadows on the walls start playing tricks on your mind... It helps to have someone around sob as not to lose it. So I figured you wouldn't want to sleep alone...'

It took me a moment to realize she was actually referring to herself. I knew the feeling painfully well. I'd be a villain like no other to turn her unspoken plea down.

The mattress in her room was big enough for three, which was very fortunate for me, because I was determined to leave as much space between her and me as possible. There wasn't much furniture around, just a small box on the floor beside the mattress – a radio, the kind of music-producing gadget that more and more wizards used these days, but no self-respecting pureblood would ever touch. Its presence only made the room appear emptier.

'So, you've been on your own for a long time now, huh?' I attempted to act casual while at the same time not moving a muscle. Casual? Yeah, right. Whatever part of me had posed that question, it was a wicked one.

'Yeah,' the mudblood replied, turning over to look at me. 'It's for the better, of course. Safer. And you don't have to share your food.'

'But earlier today you said your parents –'

'Oh, no, they can take care of themselves. Like I said, I've hidden them well... and I will see them again soon, I'm sure. This war state can't last forever, mark my words. People will get sick of it. There will be a revolution or something.'

I mentally disagreed with that statement, so instead I asked:

'You haven't seen your parents in...?'

'Since the war began,' she answered. 'See, the crisis in the wizarding world is no reason for them not to go on with their normal lives. Why worry them, I mean? I've got it all worked out. When I'm back, they won't even know I was gone.'

For the first time in ages, I ventured outside my mind and found a world out there I didn't suspect existed.

'What?' I exclaimed. 'You mean your parents don't even know about... all of this?'

The girl shrugged and her indifference gave me chills. 'It wouldn't make a difference if they did. They wouldn't understand... They just don't get our ways; you ought to know. Muggles, well... they're just a different kind of people.'

Apparently, there was a fate out there worse than mine.

'And you've been completely on your own since the war began?'

The girl appeared taken aback by the tone of my voice. 'It's safer for the parents, don't you see? Those that are closer to their wizard children get found more easily. Haven't you figured that out? Besides,' she added with a forced smile, 'I'm not really alone.' She reached out and pressed a button on the dusty radio box. A melody emerged from it that resembled a cat fight – the kind of music only teenagers could stand.

'What's this?' I inquired. The girl smiled condescendingly at me.

'What, don't you know The Smashing Pumpkins? It's a great rock band. You should like them, I believe. It's rebellious music, very fitting, given our situation.'

I, having never given the idea of Muggle music a thought, decided to remain silent as the band calling themselves The Smashing Pumpkins (which sounded wizarding enough) was screaming in the background. I hadn't listened to such music since I was in my fifth year at school, a time two and a half years earlier that seemed a century away...

The girl was still staring at me, and I tried to stare back prudently. She had changed for the night; the plain clothes were gone and had been replaced with a pajama bottom and a black top, which revealed more of her general outlines than I was prepared to see. But the real surprise was her arms – beneath each of her shoulders there was a tattoo, a mark inked into the skin. They weren't like mine, but they were far from birds or butterflies, too. They had an eerie feel to them. It wasn't something you'd expect to see on the skin of a fragile young girl.

'Don't ask,' she caught my eye and answered my unspoken question. 'Not the greatest tattoo choice, I know.'

'How did you get them?' I couldn't help asking. "You should see mine," I thought sarcastically, "now _that_'s a bad tattoo choice." The girl didn't reply right away.

'I was a hostage for a short while,' she said eventually, with a blank face. 'In Denmark. You know the Death Eaters have allies all over the world? Well, that's where I got these marks. I'm not from around here, as you might have guessed. I try not to stick around in one place for too long.'

There was something about this girl, I couldn't help but think. The way she constantly apologized for everything, the way she answered every question you could think of asking before it had crossed your mind as if she was afraid of hearing it; the way she was about to cry when begging for company yet she remained perfectly impassive while talking about her war experiences... and the way she felt uneasy touching a boy's hand because she was, after all, no more than seventeen... There was _something_ about her. Something messed up, something gone horribly wrong. Like me, and yet not at all like me. In her, there was something really brave and something really afraid. In me, there was only the latter.

'Are you ashamed of them?' I asked quietly, glancing at the marks.

'Why should I be?' she retorted defensively. Then, a mere moment later, she sighed and added: 'Well, yeah, actually. I don't exactly love what they represent.'

'I think you should be proud,' I attempted to appease her. 'If I had, er, been in a Death Eater camp, I never would have succeeded at running away on my own.'

I regretted my words immediately. A dark shadow fell upon her face.

'What about you?' she countered me gloomily. 'What's your story?'

I swallowed with difficulty. Now that I knew _her_ story, I would rather go to a Death Eater camp as a hostage rather than tell her mine.

'Can't say.'

'I can tell you keep in touch with your folks. How are they handling it?'

'Can't say.'

'Are they both Muggles or are they one of the half –'

'Can't say.'

'What's your favorite colour?'

'Can't –' I began automatically, but then I replayed the question in my head. 'What?'

'Look, you're right,' the girl clarified in response, 'we shouldn't exchange information that might expose us to additional risk. But that's not a very personal question, is it? What's your favorite colour?'

I could tell she was begging for me to keep talking. Silence in the war days was excruciating. And sometimes even angry music wasn't enough to drown it out.

'I've never thought about it,' I confessed. 'I don't think there is one.'

'Come on,' the mudblood insisted, 'you must have a favorite colour, everybody does. So what's yours?'

A dilemma so trivial left me entirely confused. In a manner of speaking, no one had asked me a question this personal. I instantly thought of the colours I had worn since birth – black, dark green, silver. But neither of them had ever inspired an affinity in me.

'Could you be a bit more specific?' I implored.

The girl laughed. 'What, about colours?'

'Well, are you referring to a preference in clothing, or –'

'No, silly! What's the matter with you? I'm merely asking you to name me a colour that you _like_.'

'What, like one I find pleasant to look at?'

'Yes. It's that simple.'

I had never seen the problem from this particular angle.

'I like the colour of rye,' I shared after some serious contemplation. I remembered the lands outside the Manor. 'You know what the fields look like on a summer's day? I like that.'

'That's a good start,' the mudblood approved.

'And... and I also like... well... the colour of the sunrise,' I recalled. I didn't get to enjoy many of those as a child. My room at the Manor resembled a fortress. Sunrises were a rare and therefore treasured sight. 'You know, that colour, soft and reddish, but brighter than the sunset...'

'You mean pink,' the girl cut in helpfully.

'...you know, that colour, it's not quite red and not quite violet, and –'

'Yeah. It's called pink.'

'– kind of like strawberry ice-cream, only –'

'Pink,' insisted the mudblood, smiling.

'No, it's more of a lavender peach...'

'What? That's the first time I'm hearing a boy speak of colours in these terms. Face it, mister. You like pink. And,' she attempted to stifle her grin, 'there's nothing wrong with that, really.'

Despite the rising embarrassment, I was discovering more and more things about myself. I had never suspected that I had a favorite colour – and now, suddenly, I seemed to have thousands. For instance, I liked the colour of her hair: like the Forbidden Forest mixed with dark chocolate. I liked the colour of her skin. And her lips. And her eyes. There was brown and green in them, but they didn't exist as separate colours. They were eyes deep, clever and crystal clear, neither bright nor dark, not specked and not hazel, one-of-a-kind – and currently emanating a warmth I could curl up and start purring in. and if she were to interrogate me about my favorite scent, I'd have to lie in order not to reveal that it had to be hers...

'Sorry I woke you up, once again,' she said at some point. 'Tell you the truth... well, remember what I said about the aftershocks of near-death experiences? Well, mine decided to hit me in the middle of the night. I feel much better now... so I won't complain if you decide to go back to your room...'

I had no idea what to say. If I went back there, the thoughts that would haunt me through the night would be either horrid or sickly. Only in the presence of this girl did I feel like I could count on myself to be a sane person.

'Um... I think there's spiders in the other room,' I managed. It was the best I could come up with. The girl laughed, but there was no mockery in her voice.

'What's your favorite colour?' I asked, curled up on the bed beside her. I was getting drowsy against my own will.

'Mine?' I heard her say. 'Hmm... in the spirit of your answers, I think I'll go with... the colour of sunlight.'

'Why?' I yawned, closing my eyes. I remember I was already dreaming when her voice came to me from afar:

'Because it allows you to see all the other colours.'


	3. III

_III._

I couldn't recall having slept well for the past two years of my life. But when I woke up the next morning in a ball of limbs at her feet, I realized I had slept like a baby. I could almost fool myself that I was a normal person.

The mudblood shuffled when I tried to slip out of bed. I spent a few seconds in silence staring at her, examining her curves as she slept, even though I knew it was far from right. Finally, I cleared my throat, rather as a warning to myself.

'Morning,' I greeted awkwardly, as I wasn't accustomed to being polite. The girl opened her eyes and blinked sleepily at me.

'Is it a good one?' she asked.

"Rather too good for me," I thought to myself.

'Yes?' I ventured.

'We're not under attack, are we?' she clarified.

I looked out the opening in the wall that had probably once been a window.

'Doesn't look like it.'

'Great,' the girl approved. 'Still, if we want to keep it this way, we've got to be on the move. You can, er, go to the bathroom and stuff if you want, and I'll get dressed...'

I could take a hint, so I headed to the bathroom. This morning, it took me much more cold water to shake off the feeling. The mudblood's absence made me feel almost physical discomfort. I was terrified to start thinking again: about the war, the Death Eaters, my parents... They hadn't called since last night. Had they written me off already, or had they just stopped caring? Or were they into even greater trouble?

I went out of the house to clear my head. The sun was shining high into the sky. Spring was at its best. There was no sound to be heard but the mild rustling of the grass in the wind and distant cheerful birdsong. I filled my lungs with air that didn't stink of blood and magic. Today, I wasn't the same person. My mind was still a mess, but my body was alive, and it was giving me various signals to remind me of that long-ignored fact. To my dismay, I realized I was starving. I hadn't realized how hungry I was for life until I got a taste of it anew and recalled everything I had been missing out on.

'Nice, isn't it?' I heard the mudblood's voice beside me. I twitched. Apparently, she was really good at creeping.

'Oh, yeah,' I nodded when I regained my confidence. I tried to assume the posture of a man who didn't normally watch girl while they were asleep.

'I've never lived here, of course,' the girl replied, lost in her own thoughts. 'This used to be the house of my grandparents. My folks are, naturally, in the city.'

I didn't ask her to elaborate. I knew she wouldn't tell me which city she was referring to.

'You like it better here, then?'

The girl shrugged. 'I can't tell. This place reminds me of dead people I loved. Then again, it still beats thinking of living people you hate.'

Her statement made my thoughts drift towards my parents. I now discovered I despised thinking of them. A part of my mind that grew bigger and bigger wanted me never to return to them. I was lost in a dream, and I didn't want to wake up. If I went back, my folks would take from me the little I had now, which currently amounted to some company and a sunrise...

'Have you ever had the feeling,' I suddenly blurted out without thinking, 'that you start liking people more once they're dead?'

The mudblood turned her eyes away from the sky and fixed them on me.

'Something happened to you,' she stated. I raised an eyebrow in question. I felt stripped.

'What do you mean?'

'It's obvious, mister,' she spoke to me, her stare passing through me like a knife through butter. 'You know what they say – when you have too many dealings with the enemy, you star turning into them. You become the one you run from, the one you fear, the one you hate. I'm thinking that's what you're going through. I mean, you kind of sound like them... you know.'

I felt my guts turn upside down.

'Does this,' I choked out, 'make you one of them?'

The mudblood sighed and looked away. I felt like a flower seeing the sun turn its back on it.

'I ask myself this question every day,' she confessed in a heavy voice. 'I often feel like killing... for vengeance, mostly, and perhaps because this war thing takes its toll on your mind. There are times I think there's just sides... nothing more.'

'Really...' I managed, struggling to prevent my hands from shaking.

'Well, I guess we're all the same when they break us. After all, our fortunes were reversed a long time ago, right? Wizards were once hunted by Muggles without mercy. If we had the upper hand now, wouldn't we be just as bad as the Death Eaters?'

With a heavy heart, I agreed with her... and then I didn't. There had to be an exception to this rule, otherwise the world was a place worse than hell to live in. Even when you're the villain, you still don't fancy the idea of living in a world without a single hero.

'Have you ever killed anyone?' I uttered spinelessly.

'No,' said the mudblood grimly. 'But I often feel like I could, you know?'

'Given your situation, you have the right,' I made a pathetic attempt to make her feel better. A moment later, I watched her gaze turn icy.

'_No_,' she glowered at me, and I knew then and there that I deserved to burn in those cold flames. 'Nobody has the right to take a life. Least of all those so called... _Death Eaters_. I've seen what they're like. They kill and maim, and rape and ravage, and they laugh about it. That's monstrous. They take it all out on us... not just the Muggles, us! And what can we do about it? We don't belong anywhere...'

'I'm sorry?' I muttered, because my own morbid thoughts were eating me alive.

'...we don't belong in either world, can't you see?' the girl insisted ferociously. 'We're freaks in the Muggle world because we can do magic, we're treated as freaks in the wizarding world as well... Either way, we don't fit in. And the Death Eaters... they know no mercy. That's the difference between good and evil, I think. If a Death Eater was begging me for his life, despite everything, I'd hesitate.'

Her words were altogether torturous and comforting. Unwillingly, I pictured my father, the psychotic brute, on his knees at my feet.

'If a Death Eater was begging me for his life, I wouldn't hesitate,' I articulated firmly. 'I'd kill him in the blink of an eye.'

'But then you'd be just like him,' the mudblood pointed out bitterly. 'You'd kill him, but thus you would become him. You wouldn't be balancing out anything. It takes a villain to destroy a villain, and that way their number only grows.'

'So the battle is already lost, then?' I deducted weakly.

The girl took some time before she answered. 'Yes. But that's no reason to stop fighting. It's not about winning, it's about not ending up loathing yourself. If we've got anything the Death Eaters don't, it's that we can look at ourselves in the mirror without getting sick to the stomach.'

'Tell me about it,' I concurred morbidly.

It was then that I realized this girl was so much more than willpower, damage and an irresistible appearance. She was worth so much more than me. She was the exception to the rule. One day she made me feel alive, the next she made me want to kill myself.

Then again, she'd spare a Death Eater if he was begging, wouldn't she? Wasn't there hope for me, then? But my common sense countered my vain daydreams: "Are you nuts? Look at her. She'd never settle for a villain, let alone a minor one. No, she's the hero's girl... what, nonsense, she's more than that! She _is_ the hero, Malfoy, and that means that when this is all over, you'll never see her again..."

'I'd like to know your name,' I said spontaneously. Her expression didn't change.

'No,' she turned me down firmly. 'It's not safe.'

'Just the first one,' I implored. Would she hesitate for a begging Death Eater?

'No. And don't tell me yours.'

'I've got to know what to call you,' I insisted desperately. A crooked smile appeared on her face.

'Call me "hostess", if you like. Or "landlady." Or names, I don't care. I'm not telling you my name. You'll forget it anyway. For now, we'll go get breakfast. I don't know about you, but I'm starving.'

When we were sufficiently far from the house, we Apparated to a small town. Judging by the look of it, it had to be in the Muggle world. We stole some provisions from the nearest food store with magic.

'See?' the mudblood complained to the world in general. 'In the end, we are just like them.'

I enjoyed eating with her when we were back, and then lazing about the house and meadow, doing nothing and barely speaking. There wasn't much to talk about but the war, and that subject wasn't making either of us feel better.

'You need to loosen up,' she said to me some time after the quiet lunch outdoors. 'I know you'll say "Look who's talking," and you'll be right... but if you dwell on the worst at all times, you won't survive much longer. When I first saw you, I thought I was seeing a ghost.'

She saw my brow furrow as she said it. I had no idea what I looked like, but I cursed myself for not looking better. Aw well, the odds were never on my side anyway...

'I didn't mean to offend you,' the mudblood hurried to take back her words. 'You look... you look fine, really. Just really... really tense, all the time.'

I didn't know what to say in my defense. How could I not be tense when my Mark had been stinging all afternoon, and I had to keep blocking my father's increasingly aggressive attempts to reach me?

'You need to try to unwind,' she added in a sympathetic voice, and I unexpectedly felt her hand again, this time on my back. 'Surely you remember how to do that?'

Right now, unwinding was the last thing I was capable of doing. With her hand gently massaging my back, I was twice as tense as usual.

If anything, the sudden excitement drowned out the pain in my Mark. Despite the blood rapidly leaving my head and rushing to less boring places, I made an effort to remember. In a way, it was like thinking of favorite colours. What did I enjoy doing before the war? There had to have been good moments, at least, if not good days. How did I use to like spending my time before the nightmare had begun? Had my life ever involved anything but bickering, bullying and being bullied? I used to play a lot of Quidditch, I recalled. Despite everything, I liked it... I even, on occasions (again, despite everything), considered myself to be good at it.

'Are there any broomsticks around?' I asked absently. The mudblood raised an eyebrow.

'I'm afraid not,' she said, 'unless you need one to sweep the floor with. That's a Muggle house; besides, I think airborne escapes attract too much unwanted attention.'

'Oh, er... no, I just thought I could just... fly around a bit...'

'Sorry,' the mudblood apologized once more. I was finding it ever more adorable. I felt the urge to get her to touch me again: at her silky touch, all my troubles seemed to disappear.

'But,' she went on a moment later, 'there are swings, if you don't feel too old for it.'

'What?'

She took my hand. My brain melted into jelly once more.

'Come on. I'll show you.'

She led me across the meadow to the back of the house and presented me with the sight of two vertical posts joined by a horizontal one, several chains hanging from the metal construction. Off the chains, at the height of my knees, hung two wide wooden planks.

'Well, don't act like you've never seen a swing before,' the girl laughed as I stood petrified a few feet away. 'Or are you too proud to do it at this age?'

'Do what?' I asked, taken aback. Pretending to be the good guy was a piece of cake compared to pretending to be a muggle-born.

'Swing, of course!' the mudblood exclaimed and sat one one of the chained planks. 'As a child, I used to feel queasy doing it, but now I love it. It takes my mind off things. I know it's for kids, but come on, no one's watching!'

I plucked up the courage to take the improvised seat next to her and decided to act casual and do whatever she did.

But she had put on a dreamy smile, wiggling her feet and doing nothing. I was aware Muggles were short on entertainment – they even had these boring sports where you did nothing but kick a ball around the ground, – but was it that bad?

'It's been ages since I've done it with someone else around,' she shared. 'Care to swing me a bit?'

'Excuse me?'

'Just for a while,' there was that same pleading note in her voice as last night.

'Um...'

'You know,' she explained wearily, 'go around, get behind my back, put your hands on the chains and push.'

Had she said these words to me in different circumstances, I would have fainted.

'Could you repeat that?'

'Haven't you ever been on a swing before?' the mudblood voiced out her astonishment. I froze.

'My parents didn't approve of such... childish things,' I mumbled unconvincingly. She, however, simply smiled.

'Ah, they were businessmen, I take it. I feel for you. Okay, wait; I'll do it for you.'

'Do what –'

Before I could finish, I was flying. Well, not actually flying; it was more like the Muggle equivalent of it, and it couldn't compare to the real thing, but... I squeezed the chains on my sides on instinct. I didn't swing far at first, but with every push I soared higher and higher. And the mudblood turned out to be right: it really was strangely liberating. After the third swing, I couldn't think of much. I felt the acceleration of the flight, the breeze in my face... I closed my eyes and imagined I was fifty feet above the ground, playing Quidditch, flying again, feeling young and relatively untroubled as I once was...

A triumphant shout tore from my throat. Behind me, I heard the mudblood's ringing laughter.

'See? Atta boy! That's the spirit!'

A wave of warmth filled my chest and my heart skipped at her encouragement. Through the soft veil of the wind on my skin, I dimly recalled her words: "I'm not going to tell you my name... you'll forget it anyway..." This line said more about her than any other. "She _needs_ someone, doesn't she? Maybe not you, Draco Malfoy, but someone... And, only if for a day, you don't have to be your usual horrid self..."

We spent the afternoon doing nothing else. I rejoiced when I got the hang of swinging her back and forth. Then, she enlightened me that we could do it together. I stood up on the swing behind her, and together we soared so high the metal posts screeched. The meadow was echoing with our laughter. How had this pleasure been denied to me to this day? This was a pastime for the hopelessly deranged, a cure for the brokenhearted, a consolation for the inconsolable – for only a person truly desperate could find happiness in something so pathetically simple. How could this game have been made for children? Did they have anything to grieve about?

But the time off the nightmare wouldn't last forever. A storm was coming. The sky darkened; thick clouds accumulated over the swings. We had to go inside.

The mudblood wasn't bothered by the gloom.

'It's almost like we're ordinary people, right?' she beamed all the way to the second floor. 'Like everything is back to normal, right?'

I wanted to agree with her more than anything. But I knew a storm coming when I saw one, and it wasn't the one about to hit the sky. My actions would have inevitable consequences. I was living a dream, and it couldn't last. If I was away longer than a day, I'd be considered a runaway, a traitor – and the penalty for my transgression would fall upon my parents. No matter what I blabbered about killing Death Eaters, I wouldn't find the strength to leave them behind. Sooner or later, I'd return to the nightmare... and then I'd never see her again. I wouldn't even know where to find her. I wouldn't even know her name.

I caught her eye as she was smiling at me and pain poured into my chest. The battle was lost before it had begun. I had to let her go...

A distant thunder rumbled in the sky. I opened my mouth to say something and I sagged to my knees.

This time, the pain in the Mark was intolerable. It seemed to aim to turn my entrails inside out. I had to grit my teeth in order not to scream. It was my father's call, and he was panicking, not furious. The first lightning had struck. My folks were being punished, and I was to blame. I could swear I could hear the Lord's steely voice bellowing in their heads: "Where is he? Find him and bring him to me!"

'Oh, no!' the mudblood bit her lip, and sprang to the floor to me. 'It's hit you again, hasn't it?'

Tears surfaced in my eyes due to the agony.

'But – I don't get it... We were having so much fun...'

I couldn't speak; I couldn't even breathe. For a moment, one unbearable moment, my head was split by my father's chilling shriek... and then, all of a sudden, it was gone. The connection was lost. The pain abandoned my shaking body, leaving nothing but asphyxiating terror in its place.

'Please! Talk to me! What's wrong?' I heard her call. She couldn't see the pain, she only saw that I was crying. 'Is it an aftershock?'

'N-no,' I sobbed. 'N-no...'

'The what is it? Please, tell me!'

Cold sweat was running down my hand when she caught it.

'Can't stay...' I choked out in panic. 'Can't – stay... I've got to go... I've got to find them...'

The mudblood probably decided I was throwing a fit.

'Stay with me,' she commanded shakily, grabbing hold of my face. 'Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Don't let your mind wander! You're here, and you're safe –'

'No,' I whimpered through the suffocation of the panic attack. 'I've got to go – I've got to find them... I've – got – to stop him...'

'Who?' the girl exclaimed frantically. 'You-Know-Who?'

'They could get killed... I've got to go there... I've got to go...'

'Where?'

'To the Death Eaters...'

The tears were already clouding my vision as fear was clogging my mind. I was unable to think straight. I didn't know what was going on around me. I was barely hearing the thunder outside...

The mudblood recognized the symptoms of a person about to say farewell to their sanity and pulled my face within inches from hers.

'Hey... Hey! Listen to me!' she shouted. 'Whatever you're thinking right now, don't! Fight it! This isn't the way, you hear me? I know you went through something awful, I know you want vengeance –'

'I've got to find the Death Eaters,' I croaked and tried to struggle. But her grip was suddenly steel.

She saw me looking at her in that bloodshot way, the look of a madman, and I saw the horror reflected in her eyes.

'What have they done to you?' she whispered.

I tried to focus her eyes in my vision. I couldn't lie to them.

'Everything,' I uttered.

Before I could resist, she held me in her arms – not so much to console me as to prevent me from running away.

'I know,' her voice echoed trembling in my ear, 'I know... But you mustn't listen to these voices, understand? Please, stay here... If you go to face them, they'll kill you –'

'He wants me,' I stammered. 'The Dark Lord –'

'Exactly! Remember what I told you? It takes a villain to destroy a villain, not someone like you...'

'I'm the worst villain of them all,' I cried. Her slap collided loudly with my cheek.

'Wake up, will you? That's exactly what they want you to do – to walk right into their hands! I know you can't stand sitting here doing nothing – but if you go out there, what good will it do? You've got to keep it together, you hear me? You won't even out the score if you do something stupid! So why don't you stay here instead where you can save at least one life?'

Despite being completely irrelevant to my situation, her ringing words echoed in my head and poured some sense into it. She was frightfully right: if I went after my parents, I wouldn't make a difference. The Dark Lord wouldn't kill them – they were too valuable to him, and besides, death wasn't punishment enough for them. No, it was all a trap, and torturing my parents was just his way to get me where he wanted me... and when I showed up, he'd kill me before Mother and Father's eyes and leave them alive, for there was no greater punishment... Yes, he wouldn't settle for anything less...

On the other hand, by remaining in hiding, I was just putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, he'd find me. And we would all pay. I was the only thing currently preventing him from executing his plan by not acting according to script. A hero would rush in to the rescue and get everybody killed. A villain was merely going to buy some time for himself and his loved ones. But wasn't a little time better than none?

The thunderstorm seemed to be getting closer.

'Please,' the girl's voice entered my ears soft and soothing, as if she was speaking to a troubled child, 'don't be a fool. Stay here. Stay here with me.'

Through the rattle of the upcoming storm I heard something other than concern in her voice: fear. And then, the unlikely epiphany found its way into my malfunctioning brain: she was afraid, not only for me, but for herself. She didn't want me to go and get myself killed – because, then, there wouldn't be anybody else. She didn't want to be left on her own...

...and I realized she had wrapped me in a desperate embrace.

A flash of lightning lit the demolished walls. I snapped out of the panic and made a decision. It wasn't a decision someone else would have made. It was the decision of a villain, one that seemed, from a third person's perspective, selfish and illogical. But a villain counts on the element of surprise. Heroes are way too predictable and therefore easy to trick.

In some ways, that went for certain villains as well... such as the Dark Lord, for instance. Me, I was a different kind of villain. I didn't fit in on either of the sides.

And, right now, the only side I was supposed to be on was the mudblood's side, which was pressing comfortingly against my face.

Thunder followed the lightning, sounding ever closer. The mudblood interrupted her attempts to appease me and glanced at me in nervous wonder. I realized I was rubbing my cheek against her neck.

It had been purely instinctive. I was an animal in her presence, not wild, but devoted and contrite, and I reveled in the comfort she was pouring over me like it was the last thing I'd do.

Then again, maybe it was. To hell with my old life, fear and common sense, then, to hell with everything that I once was! Who cared if the world would end tomorrow? She was my world now. She was the sunlight hidden underneath the clouds, she was the silver lining... Let the storm rage, then! The storm was what had brought us together in the first place. Let it drown us, break us, tear us apart! As long as it did, we'd hold on to each other for shelter, because all we had was each other...

'It'll be alright,' the mudblood muttered a little awkwardly, watching me lie like a child in her arms. 'You've got to keep telling yourself that. Otherwise you'll get used to th darkness.'

But I had seen the colour of sunlight.

'Thank you for everything,' I said quietly, praying not to scare her away.

'Oh,' she said, slightly off-guard. 'Er... you're welcome. I –'

She tried to slip away from the embrace, but I held her hand imploringly.

'I won't forget your name, you know,' I promised. She mustered a tense laugh in response.

'Yes,' she hurried to agree, 'you don't know it, after all, so –'

'I don't care,' I went on foolhardily. 'I won't forget any of you.'

On instinct, once again, I pressed myself against her face. Her scent enveloped me like a bath of rose petals.

'You're,' she paused to draw a breath, 'you're way too close...'

I tried to fix on her what I desperately hoped to be a clear gaze.

'I know,' I replied. She barely shuddered, but I felt it. Her lashes fluttered; she wasn't sure what to say.

And then, another thunder tore the sky in two. It nearly shook what was left of the walls in the house. And we each had but one shelter from the storm...

I seized the opportunity and I kissed her. It was a villain's move, but it was the only way I knew how. My lips met hers impatiently yet softly, and my heart skipped as I sensed her shyly respond to my anxious advance. I let out small sighs in the heated pauses. A wave of elation came over me as I heard her breathing grow more audible; my hands rose to her face, shaking. I was intoxicated with a pure and deep emotion; never had I shared a moment so true and tender with anyone. I felt like it was my first day living. My heart was racing with feelings it had yet been incapable of. And meanwhile, the storm was coming down upon us...

I didn't care. I was kissing the lips of the porcelain girl, they were brushing against mine and her fragile hands were cupping my face. Her fingers were sending goosebumps along my body. Inch by inch, they gradually started sliding over my clothes and skin, barely grazing the surface. Her touch stunned me so that I had to breathe out slowly not to lose control...

'What's wrong?' she whispered in my ear, a whisper that gave me hot chills. 'I think... it's right... We could die tomorrow...'

'Exactly,' I choked out, because her tongue was gently running down my neck. 'I don't want – to mess up something so important...'

I was trying to resist her for I cared about her too much, but it was impossible. Her soft milky scent was all around me for me to hungrily breathe in, her curves were all pressing against me and it was only a matter of time before I surrendered...

Another lightning struck and thunder started screeching in the sky.

She wasn't imposing her will upon me, but her kisses were growing deeper and calmer, like she had faith in me, like she was encouraging me to give into them. My hands, still shaking, reached out on their own accord and proceeded to her back, her waist, her hips... and when hers went underneath my shirt, I closed my eyes and bit my lip to stifle a groan...

But as I felt her delicate finger start unbuttoning my shirt – thrillingly, excruciatingly slowly, – I froze. I couldn't share myself with her the way I wanted to, I couldn't open up to her completely, I couldn't reveal to her who I was; I couldn't let her see the Mark...

'It's alright,' I heard her whisper affectionately. There was no fighting that voice.

'Not here,' I uttered gently in response, briefly glancing at the blankets on the nearby mattress. 'On the bed.'

Outside the run-down, cobwebbed house, it started raining heavily.

Moments later, I was melting underneath her while she was lavishing my abdomen in kisses. Her hair was falling in large wild waves over my skin. A haze was falling upon my mind once more, but this time it wasn't a red one: it was the colour of the sunrise...

I plucked up the courage to see her in all of her beauty and started carefully removing her top. I could see her curves rise and subside as she was breathing unsteadily underneath it. Both of us shirtless, I held my breath and paused just to look at her, and felt unbearably inferior in appearance. I realized I'd never even come close to something this beautiful before. At the sight of her divine elegant figure I was left breathless. My body approached her slowly, for fear of damaging her by just being near her. She, however, murdered my insecurities with more of her kisses. During the war days, I had lost a lot of weight, I wasn't sleeping well and it showed, but she didn't seem to mind. I wanted to express my affection, my gratitude, I wanted to approach her with the respect she deserved – but I couldn't take my hands and lips off her, I had to have her close, I had to feel her little wild heart beating...

I no longer heard the thunder roaring and the rain bashing outside the trembling walls. Her small moans were filling every bit of space inside my head. I lay her on the mattress gently, hurried to bury my Marked arm in the blankets and surrendered to her caress in the darkness. The rest of our attire fell almost on its own accord. I could hardly believe I wasn't dreaming. In the nude, she was a vision. My eyes kept getting drawn towards her breasts. They were full and firm and covered with a layer of skin smoother than satin. Her breathing beckoned me to touch them, to feel them, to taste them... I could feel her body winding beneath me. Her hands were running down my back, tearing blissful groans from my throat. I was getting dizzy with the pleasure, and the storm outside was threatening to split the sky in two...

I shuddered when her fingertips crept up my thighs, and I couldn't resist enveloping her waistline in my hands. She had gorgeous legs, slim and silky and snow white, and I wanted to dedicate a lifetime to them, but the most delicate parts of her body were drawing me towards them like a magnet...

Flash. Lightning scraped against the darkening sky. It might as well have been inside, because I felt as though the room was on fire.

With the back of my hands, I brushed the inside of her legs. They trembled, and I sensed their touch against my waist. I wasn't prepared for what would follow. Her caress of my lower abdomen and the folds of my thighs made me squirm with suppressed satisfaction. The pleasure was almost too much to bear...

Wham. Thunder shook the walls around us. Let the storm rage, let it drown us...

I longed and burned for her, and my passion raged wilder than the storm outside. I craved all of her, from her eyes that scorched me maddeningly and her rosy lips trembling in between the moans all the way to the delicate down of her private parts... But most of all, I wanted to know if she shared my sweet torment, I wanted to know if I was good enough, if I was her hero, if she could love me the way that I loved her...

Bang. The house shuddered at yet another fearsome thunder. And just when I thought I couldn't take it any longer, when I thought I could no longer put on a brave face, she enveloped me into herself.

It happened slowly, as if she was trying not to hurt me, and a high-pitched groan broke away from my throat, one that I'd been struggling to suppress all this time. But I couldn't fight it; I might as well have tried to stop the storm. I felt her indescribable softness embrace me, I felt her warmth close implacably upon me, rendering me unable and unwilling to leave her, I felt her muscles contracting...

...and next thing I knew, I was drowning in her, abandoning all reason, feeling adored and desired like never before. Love was gushing all around me, sweat was running down my entire body. Every inch of hair on it rose on the lookout for the slightest sensation, the softest thrill... And, suddenly, I was no longer the villain. This girl's hands had the power to mould me into whatever they wanted – and they were moulding me into someone better. How could I have wished to kill her once? How could I cause harm to the glorious body that hosted the kindest heart in the world?

And I didn't even know her name... But I had to let it out, my love for her, I had to voice it out with something besides ecstatic shouting. It seemed the storm itself held its breath to hear me draw one and groan, from the bottom of my lungs:

'Mudblood,' I said. 'Mudblood...'

A part of me expected her to interrupt it all and leave... but she called me "baby", and I knew she loved me then and there, and she slowly led me to the inevitable ultimate bliss that was to follow.

The rain was bucketing hard on the land...

...and we climaxed together, beautifully, torturously, passionately, intensely, just like the raging storm outside...


	4. IV

_IV. _

It was a perfect moment. While it lasted, I felt thoroughly purified. I could almost believe that my sins were forgiven.

It took me a long time to assume it was possible. A good deed could never right all wrongs... and yet it obviously took one good deed done unto the bad guy to make him want to turn his life around. For the first time in my life, I had done right, and I knew I didn't owe it to me: with this girl around, I simply couldn't do wrong. I was sure of it to the core of my heart; there was no doubt in it left...

That is, until I saw the blood on the mattress.

I was already halfway dressed at the time, but was lazing about, stroking the mudblood's wild hair scattered over the pillow and daydreaming about a distant future that could never be. She was in her lingerie, smiling, her eyes closed. After the act, even the storm seemed to be ebbing away.

And then, when she shifted slightly, I saw it – a lustrous puddle of red slowly sinking into the blankets. My mind couldn't process what it meant at first; I just saw a familiar shade of horror. All this time staring into a pair of eyes shimmering with the colour of sunlight, I had forgotten the colour of death.

The blood was hers, and traces of it ran across the inside of her legs. I choked. In a flash, I realized I had taken innocence that wasn't mine to take. It was the ultimate prize of a woman's trust, and I deserved neither the prize nor the trust. "But," a part of me attempted to justify my actions, "I didn't know... If I had known, I wouldn't –" "Wouldn't you?" my conscience pointed out wickedly. "Who are you kidding, mate? She's only seventeen, with a really rotten past. What did you expect? It's not as if you couldn't have figured it out in advance. Once a villain, always a villain..."

My heart sank. I tried to chase away the terror from my lungs and the red haze drawing near at the sight of blood. It was the evidence of yet another one of my crimes. That was the villain's curse: when you became one, you developed a talent for hurting people. Eventually, you succeeded without even aiming for it.

The mudblood mistook the horror in my eyes for concern. She reached out and encouragingly drew her fingers along my arm.

'It's alright,' she assured me softly. 'It didn't hurt one bit.'

But this wasn't enough for me to shake off the rising guilt. I shuddered when I felt her hand run over my Dark Mark. I tried to freeze my expression and instinctively scratched the Mark when she wasn't looking.

And I realized it had been a mistake. As a Death Eater, you're free to scratch your Mark all you want, provided you're careful not to hurt yourself and the others. But you don't go scratching your Mark while thinking about the Death Eaters and the potential threat of the Dark Lord...

You may be through with the past, as they said, but the past ain't through with you.

There was a chilling flash and, a moment later, a horrific bellow of thunder. It wasn't an ordinary thunder: it was the shriek of the sky being ripped open. For a fraction of a second, I mused in panic if the Lord knew, and the moment I thought it, he knew that I was thinking it, and I knew that he knew, I knew he'd seen my thoughts to their innermost layer...

Furious thunder shook the lands outside again and I knew that the next lightning would hit the house. The rain had stopped. The storm that would follow would shower us in blood.

I sprang to my feet, heart trying to tear through my chest.

'It's alright,' the girl repeated, touching my shoulder. 'You know, I never really told you my name –'

'No!' I fired in panic, turning abruptly. 'Don't even think about it!'

To my further agony, I saw her backing away in fear.

'What?' she articulated icily. I violently grabbed her hand. I wasn't in my right mind again. She started struggling just when the anticipated lightning struck the roof.

'What's the matter with you?'

The walls shook. "Let the storm rage"? It's easy to say while you are still not drowning.

'No time! Go!' I screamed, tugging at her hand. Her wrist was going red within my clutch.

'What are you playing at?' she shouted angrily, and the fire in her eyes, the hellish one filled with an ominous promise of retribution, returned. All I could muster was:

'He's coming!'

'What? Who on earth –'

'The Dark Lord! GO!'

She thought I was crazy, she hated me, and I was dying inside, but I dragged her towards the door against her will anyway. Meanwhile, the entire house shuddered once more, and through the panic I heard a sound smaller yet far more blood-curdling than anything a thunderstorm could produce: the sound of the front door frame being blown to bits.

She heard it too, and she believed me. We leapt towards the exit as one.

'How did you know?' she yelped, her eyes searching the walls for treacherous shadows.

'He's after me!' I shouted, pushing her out.

'But I made us untraceable! Nobody can find this place! I'm sure of it!'

I tossed her ahead of me, but the bottom of the stairs blew up in smoke. Springing back into the room, I choked out:

'He can –'

'No, he can't!' the girl bellowed, clawing for the blasted window. 'I don't get it, I did everything – '

'You forgot one thing,' I blurted out. The wall to her room exploded in a shower of rubble. In a rush of blind terror, I pulled her up on the windowsill.

'What?'

The cloud of the explosion was slowly dispersing, revealing a dim figure standing in the door frame. I put one foot on the windowsill. There was no time for answers.

'That maybe I'm the bad guy,' I sighed bitterly, and pushed her off the edge.

I jumped after her just as a jet of light missed my head by an inch. Turning to smoke mid-flight, I caught up with her fall, grabbed her across the waist and soared. I could hear the Lord's curses shooting behind me; I could sense my parents' presence near. The mudblood was screaming, furious rather than frightened. She was trying to sink her nails into my arm, but there's no catching smoke...

My mind was frozen with panic. The Dark Lord wouldn't miss much longer. Death was several seconds away. I held my breath –

– and I did the impossible. In normal circumstances, I'd have crippled myself, but the trick was probably not to care. I went back to flesh in mid-air, dropped to my landing and Disapparated with the screaming girl in my arms. Nobody had seen it coming, not even me.

I Apparated with her in the middle of a dreary street. I squeezed her face to stop her from screaming, kicked the door to the nearest shop open and stormed in. In the shadow of the entrance, I summoned my mask onto my face. This was no time to be a face in the crowd.

Mister Borgin eyed me in fear from the counter when I approached with my hostage, spilling jars of eyes and entrails on the way while struggling not to let her break free.

'Out of my way,' I barked through the mask. The half-naked girl was writhing in my arms with fury. I saw her aim an eviscerating stare at me and I knew she was finally seeing the truth: she was seeing the villain in me.

Mister Borgin stepped aside obediently.

'Out for a fun night on the town, I take it?' he attempted to throw in a cowardly joke. I experienced brief pity for him, watching him cringe. I lowered my wand.

'Leave the shop,' I advised grimly. 'Run. I'm not alone.'

Mister Borgin knew well enough not to risk dying at his workplace. He vanished as I passed him without a moment's hesitation.

I dragged my victim to the painfully familiar vanishing cabinet. I was pleased to discover that after all these months it still responded to me. I muttered a spell, thrust the girl inside and slammed the door firmly after following her in.

In the darkness, I took a smack to the face through the mask from her – but the spell was already working.

A flash of darkness, if you could describe it that way, a desperate push, a grasp for air – and I staggered into the Room of Requirement.

The mudblood sprang out of the cabinet to attack me, but she was wandless and I wasn't. I countered her with a defensive spell and retreated to the heart of the Room for air. I slipped off the mask and slumped into a nearby chair. It was over. They couldn't get to us here, not without my permission. This was my territory. My world. My rules. Let them come...

It took some time for the wave of hatred in my head to drain away and let the sounds of reality in. Only then did I realize the girl was still there. She had sagged to her knees beside the cabinet and she was crying.

No; crying was an understatement. You cry when you're having problems at school or have just had a fight with a friend. This was heart-ripping, restless weeping. There was nothing I could do to repair things now. Looking emptily at her, I realized something: I was a villain and would forever remain one. I had betrayed this girl's trust, taken advantage of her, exposed her to danger, abused and humiliated her, and was currently keeping her hostage. I had violated every bit of her soul that had yet to this day remained intact. I had broken her down.

The knuckles of her right hand were swollen and blue. When they had collided with my mask, she had bruised her wrist. A part of me I was preparing to bury wanted to kiss it better, to feel her touch against my skin again... but I knew I had no right to even talk to her now. I looked away with a heavy heart and stared numbly at my feet. And I knew I had expected this all along. How could anything good last in the life of the bad guy? We were terrified of happiness. How could we ever manage not to chase it away?

'Go ahead,' the girl sobbed bitterly in my direction. 'Do whatever you want with me. That's what you planned from the start, wasn't it? I hope you have twice as much fun this time!'

'No,' I answered blankly, consumed in self-loathing. The mudblood produced a desperate cackle.

'No? Oh, but of course, I forgot! You like it better when they buy it, right? When you know that you have tricked them, right? When they _trust_ you!'

'Yes,' I agreed hollowly. There was nothing left to lose.

'Show me, then,' I heard her say steelily. All of a sudden, all of her frailty had gone. She was rising off the floor shakily, but surely. The fire in her eyes had gone, too. They were full of venom.

'Show me,' she repeated, approaching. 'Show me what you are. You're not _ashamed_ of it, are you?'

I swallowed with difficulty and pulled back my sleeve. My Mark was burning underneath it, but I wasn't even feeling it.

'I see,' she glowered at me with implacable malice, and then she fixed an eerie glare on my face: 'I can't believe I let you touch me. I can't believe I took care of you, comforted you, gave you shelter, saved your life... but I didn't need to, did I? You were under their wing all along!'

'Yes,' I confirmed again. She slapped me on the face with all her might.

'So, what was the case, then? You were sent to kill me?'

'Yes,' I choked out.

'But you were feeling lonely and decided to unwind with me a little instead?'

'Yes.'

'Great,' she laughed desperately in my face, 'just great... But I don't get one thing, mister... why didn't you _tell_ me? Most Death Eaters walk right up to you and say, "Hey there, girlie, I'd like to break you down." They have the decency to do _that_, at least. It's funny how sincere they are, even though they're wearing masks... but you were wearing a much more cunning mask, right? And I'm looking right at it...'

There was nothing I could say. She was reading me like a book with a sick and twisted author.

'...I would have preferred it the other way around, you know? I thought you guys loved giving a girl a fright. Then again, what do I know? I've only spent a _little_ time getting to know the likes of you. Well? Are you going to tell me _why_ you hid that Mark from me, just to satisfy my curiosity?'

Her venom was seeping underneath my skin, and the more she hurt me, the more I loved her, and the more I loved her, the more I hated myself.

'Because,' I began, voice shaking, 'because I was afraid you wouldn't like me.'

I saw her expression freeze with disgust.

'You were right,' she replied after a pause heavy with shock and revulsion. 'I know I knew the face of a villain when I saw one, but I had never seen a villain quite like you. It makes sense, actually... your sick pursuit of a real emotion to make you forget how empty you are inside... Well, now I know your type. You get off on things that you'll never understand.'

I blinked at her through the rising tears and the words couldn't help but flee from my mouth:

'I'm sorry.'

In response, the mudblood merely laughed.

'You only feel sorry for yourself,' she said without a smile, without a flame, even without venom. 'I hate you.'

With these quiet words, she left me to the mercy of my conscience. I didn't dare walk up to her from then on. My punishment was well deserved. I didn't want forgiveness.

That night, each in our own corner, we both cried ourselves to sleep.


	5. V

_V.___

In the morning, I woke up feeling guilty. It was tearing my heart apart vein by vein. There weren't any words painful enough to describe it. I couldn't imagine ever feeling anything worse.

But I would discover that I was wrong.

I knew I couldn't touch her or talk to her, but I had to see her, to ensure she was alive, if not okay. I had left her to herself for the night, although this wouldn't make anything better. If anything, it couldn't make it worse.

I strode unsteadily between the shelves as if I was badly drunk. I feared seeing her, I feared what she'd tell me, the way she'd look at me, the cold passion with which she would judge me...

...but by the time I had walked half of the Room's territory, I began to realize there were worse things than that.

I lapped the other half of the Room, panic rising. And I ran to a halt at the front door.

She was gone. I didn't even need to look, I could feel it. She had seized the opportunity and she had left.

A moment later, I sank to the floor – not sagging, but rather attempting to curl up into myself. The tears were racing down my cheeks. Hogwarts was hard to get into, but incredibly easy to leave. And – with the exception of the Room – even easier to get captured in, since it was currently pretty much run by Death Eaters.

My guts turned to ice while the tears were running hot. The Dark Lord had told all of his followers what she looked like by now. He had his ways of collecting his servants.

And, as a confirmation to my blood-curdling assumption, Father's call rang through my Mark fearful yet doubtlessly sincere: "Come home and all will be forgiven."

They had her. They had her at Malfoy Manor. They had her, and to them she was no more than bait for a runaway fish.

And I had no choice but to bite the hook. But if I did, what would follow?

I held my face in my hands 'till I realized I was clawing into it, and struggled to think through the veil of the tears. I couldn't apply the villain approach this time. Sure, maybe they wouldn't kill her... for a while. But they'd torture her, they'd cripple her mind and body irreversibly, and when I could no longer bear not knowing, I'd inevitably show up to check... and then, with her alive or dead, they'd have me, and no matter what happened to me from then on, there was no way she was getting out of this alive. Not as long as there were still Death Eaters. And I was one person facing thousands...

It was a checkmate situation. A hero would burst in to the rescue and get himself and the girl killed; a villain would stay in hiding and thus get the girl killed... My heart was about to burst; my mind was a long way away from my head. Desperately, I tried to think outside the box. What would Potter do? Something stupid, but eventually, the odds would be in his favor. No, this wouldn't work for me. If a villain could count on anything, it was his rotten luck. A villain was cursed to think before acting. And I couldn't think of anything. I was all alone, losing my mind in the Room of Requirement, and despite being on my territory, I was helpless...

And I had no time to waste. My legs were telling me it was time to go, no matter how hard the brain and heart had it. I rose to my feet, trying not to lose my balance. Hands shaking, I put on the mask, I glanced at the Room's ceiling and prayed without a scrap of hope for something that could help me save her.


	6. VI

_VI._

Several minutes later, the light of the Room was gone. There was no morning light outside of it, either. Dark clouds were accumulating around Malfoy Manor, blocking out every single ray of sun that dared approach its windows. The Dark Lord was furious.

'Ah, Draco,' he greeted me calmly nonetheless when I entered the living room. 'We've been expecting you. Come in, make yourself comfortable.'

There were several Death Eaters standing guard at the scene. Most of them looked amused. My parents stood in the center of the room like statues. Mother's face was wax, and Father's started producing sweat and relief in litres when he saw me approach.

Opposite them, in the shadows, the Dark Lord was smiling at me. Deliberately, I took off my mask. If I had learned anything for the past few hours of my life, it was that the mask underneath the mask was far more efficient.

At the feet of the line of Death Eaters, on the cold floor of dark marble, lay a girl chained up and shaking. The air around her emanated the familiar stench of blood, a scent usually mixed with that of fear. But there was no fear left in her. Thanks to me, she had nothing left to lose.

'You've been wandering, Draco,' the Dark Lord began. 'You've been having... doubts.'

'I was lost,' I said sincerely, 'but not anymore. I no longer have any doubts.'

My face was stony. The trick was not to lie to the Dark Lord, because he knew. I wasn't lying; as for my thoughts, they were a blur in my numb brain – I couldn't tell one from the other, let alone the Dark Lord.

'I see,' he uttered after a moment's contemplation. 'You have come to join us, Draco?'

Instead of wondering whether to respond to that question as a test or an order, I went down on my knees and said:

'I humbly beg for your forgiveness, my Lord.'

'He is young, my Lord,' my mother hurried to echo, losing her cool. 'Please give him a chance – '

'Silence,' the Lord commanded meekly. 'Narcissa, you need not have spoken out of line. I am willing to forgive Draco, provided that he is willing to prove his loyalty...'

'My Lord, please let me endure his punishment for him – '

'What can I do to redeem my guilt, my Lord?' I interrupted my mother's plea. The Dark Lord briefly glanced at the girl on the floor. Mulciber ventured to kick her, but the Lord's warning stare stopped him.

'Do not harm her, Mulciber,' he ordered, and then turned, as I had expected, to me: 'Draco, I want you to do it.'

Judging by her appearance, the mudblood had already been harmed, but my stone expression remained intact. With all the Death Eaters around anticipating my next move, it was surprisingly easy. It was like a play, come to think of it: you just had to keep in mind that everyone was watching and remain in character, _be_ the character, otherwise you'd ruin the whole show... The only way to lie to the Dark Lord was to lie to yourself...

I saw the Death Eaters step back, grinning. The Lord was smiling, too, perhaps at the thought of my punishment. Simple yet brilliant. He knew what it would cost me to torture this girl, he was sincerely curious as to how far he could push me, and where the push would take me. Eyeing me like a collector of sick minds, he gestured at me to begin.

I carefully removed Mother's hand from my shoulder.

'It's alright,' Mother,' I assured her, and stepped towards the mudblood as everyone held their breath.

Only then did she acknowledge my existence. She raised a glare at me that could freeze hell over.

'Aren't you going to say anything?' I asked, imagining I still had the mask on. The girl bared her teeth at me in the exact opposite of a grin.

'I have nothing to say to you that you can handle hearing,' she snarled. A roar of laughter erupted from the line of Death Eaters behind me. Whether they were laughing at me or her, it remained to be seen: that depended on the outcome of our interaction.

'Try me,' I inquired with morbid curiosity.

This time, she smiled wickedly at me. 'You're too fragile, boy; I wouldn't want to hurt you.'

Judging by the laughter of my colleagues, the joke was on me.

'That's too bad,' I replied rather unimaginatively, 'because I am about to hurt you.' I raised my wand. To my surprise, as I did so, she rose abruptly to her feet. I very nearly lost my cool.

'Come on,' she stood up proud despite the chains, her eyes shooting venomous sparks. 'Or are you afraid that I might like you any less? Don't worry, baby, that's impossible.'

At the sound of her calling me "baby", my hand started shaking, but my mouth nevertheless pronounced:

'Crucio!'

Her fists clenched, she gritted her teeth, but not much more followed. The Death Eaters all glanced at me, some of them looking slightly disappointed.

'You're gonna have to do better than that,' the mudblood hissed. 'It didn't hurt _one bit_.'

'Crucio!' I screamed under the scrutinizing gaze of the Dark Lord. The girl's unwavering eyes met mine, and I wanted her to see behind the mask, to somehow guess what I was trying to tell her, to seize the chance she was being offered, not for me, but for her own sake...

'I'm not going to scream for you, wimp!'

I was the one with the wand, but she was the one tearing me apart with her words; they bashed like whips against the surface of my soul.

'Why not? You've done it before,' I retorted, and I heard the Death Eaters starting to cheer for me. In response, she spat in my face. If saliva could scorch, hers would.

'You're mistaken, baby. You can't even screw like a man.'

Mulciber started laughing so hard he had to be silenced by the Lord's icy expression. While his eyes were fixed on the Death Eater, I seized the moment, winked at my victim feverishly, and yelled:

'Crucio!'

This time, a scream tore from her throat. It was muffled and held back and dignified, and it sounded, maybe in my ears alone, just a little bit faked.

'That's a little better,' I grinned, and slowly went around her, so the Dark Lord couldn't see my face. 'No, you're right... I wasn't much of a man yesterday. But perhaps today I can repair the first impression...'

As I got behind her back, I winked again. She didn't appear to notice; her eyes were firmly fixed on me, glowing with hatred in the darkness of the Manor. Her glare hurt me unbearably, but it didn't matter anymore. I had already destroyed her. There was no undoing that. Let her despise me, let her hate me, let her curse me – just as long as she gave me a chance to save her, and then she was free to hate me even more, to draw strength from her hatred towards me, to use it to mend her broken heart, to recover and forget my name when cursing it no longer brought her satisfaction...

In this moment, I was perfectly selfless. I was flinging fake Crucios her way, and she was faking screams of pain better and better... and it was making me oddly happy, because I was seeing hope...

I traced her shoulders with my fingertips in one of the pauses, and then her face, her back, her waist – this time, like a villain. She wasn't taking her eyes off me. Her screams were faked, but her spite was genuine.

'You know what,' I began absently, 'I think I'm in the mood to do something different now.' My hands slipped from her skin towards her chains. I waved my wand and the chains started winding towards the ceiling.

The Death Eaters were laughing. The Dark Lord seemed content – he probably thought I had finally cracked. Mother and Father were staring at the sight, frozen in horror. No parent enjoys watching their child turn into a monster.

Now the mudblood was writhing a foot above the floor, hanging off the ceiling by the chains clutching her wrists, and every time she spun she eyed me with her inextinguishable malice. I let my mind drift away from the scene for a moment and attempted to remember how it went: "...go around, get behind my back, put your hands on the chains and push..."

Torturing people hanging in mid-air was a Death Eater specialty. Doing what I did next made me feel a villain on a whole new revolting level, but I suppressed my emotions and pushed. The mudblood swung forth like a puppet. Her wrists were growing scarlet in the chain cuffs.

'Remember that?' I laughed. It sounded nothing like my voice – it was the voice of the mask, – but when she returned with the momentum back to me, I repeated the push and swung her in the air a second time. The Death Eaters were now choking with laughter – to them, this was a sport, and they were attending yet another game. Mother's face was twisted with horror. I knew Father's arm on her shoulder was the only thing that prevented her from intervening.

Even the Dark Lord was taken aback by my perversion. I swung the girl as though she was a toy, as though she wasn't even a living thing. And she was now screaming for real, twisting in pain and humiliation, damning me a thousand times with her blazing eyes, tears hotter than hell rolling down her cheeks... But my lips were tightly sealed, and though I had to fight back every molecule of my body to keep the swinging going, my expression didn't change – for if it did, the entire act would fall apart...

The chains went back and forth, up and down, and she went higher and higher, and her tears flowed hotter and hotter, and the Death Eaters' laughter rang louder and louder... and through it all, I alone knew I was the puppeteer, I alone knew what it took to keep the illusion going... I vaguely glanced to see what was going on around me. The Dark Lord was in a mild shock, he was trying to get the sight through his head and look into mine – but I kept my eyes on the swinging girl, shutting out all thought and sound, struggling to keep my mind completely blank. The Death Eaters had fixed their stares on the swinging, too – when you've got a screaming girl in her underwear chained and rocking back and forth off the ceiling before you, you had no eyes for the details...

It was then that I started laughing. It was a wicked cackle, a manic laughter, and it made the mudblood's cries even more unbearable, but it was beneficial for the act, and I couldn't stop anyway. I could tell by her eyes now she would never stop hating me... but I wasn't laughing at her torment. No, I was laughing hysterically in their faces; I was laughing at all of them, because I hated their guts, because I wanted them dead to the last one, even Mother and Father, because all of this was making me sick to the stomach – but most of all, because they were all focused like hungry animals on the prey and they were blind to the trick that the illusionist was about to pull right under their noses...

Maintaining the swinging as steady as possible, I dived my other hand into my pocket and casually pulled out a small object wrapped in a silk cloth. Carefully, still rocking the victim, I brought a fist to the chains. Nobody noticed what I held in it. Mulciber reached out to give a contributing push.

'No,' I growled at him, 'she's mine.'

I pushed one last time, anticipating the return momentum, and as the swinging girl flew back to me once more, I shoved the object in her clawing hand, slipped off the cloth and felt her fingers clutch the item on instinct...

...and then, her other hand found my throat and squeezed, and I knew then that, in love or in hatred, she'd never let go, and together we swung towards the future and into the darkness...

When Mulciber reached out for the chains again, we had both disappeared. I had left the world of the other behind. To me, it no longer existed.


	7. VII

_VII. _

The object had been a plastic button lined with numbers, the kind like the one on the mudblood's radio box. It had been a Portkey, which the Room of Requirement had provided for me when I had wished for something that could save her. I could not have thought of anything more useful. With the Dark Lord in Malfoy Manor, no one could Disapparate out of the house at will.

And now, by unlikely chance, we had both landed in the Room once more, and I realized that I was the luckiest person on earth, because it was all finally over, she was finally safe... I would expose her to danger no longer. I would go back and hand myself over to the Death Eaters so that they'd stop persecuting her, I'd break my parents' hearts by paying the ultimate price for treason and it would all finally be over... but first, I just wanted to take a moment to rejoice at her breathing, at her heartbeat, at her very existence as she was lying over me on the floor of the Room of Requirement...

Tears of joyous relief were pouring down my cheeks. I was laughing, this time happily, and no force in the world could silence my laughs. Deliriously, I watched the girl rise to her knees over me, produce a hair-raising bellow and start punching me wherever she saw fit. She bashed her white fists over and over in my face, my chest, my stomach... I was just lying there laughing, feeling none of it; I was, quite literally, punch-drunk with elation, taking no notice of the blood mixing with my tears across my face.

Curses were spurting out of her mouth like blood did from mine. She was letting it all out, taking her righteous rage out on me, punching me black and blue – and through it all, I knew that it was fine. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing in the world...

'Bleed! Bleed! Bleed, you bastard!' she shrieked. I could feel her will to live, even in this state, as her fists rained punches all over my body. 'Bleed for me the way I bled for you!'

My laughter was dying out for the blood was beginning to choke me, but I still lay there smiling, watching the colour of sunlight creep in through the windows of the Room...

'You'll – be – alright,' I managed in between the strikes, tears and blood drops ceaselessly rolling down my face. 'You'll – be –'

'I'll be alright when you're dead, you hear me?' she snarled ferociously. Her hand found the wand I had dropped at the fall and pressed it against my throat. 'Laugh while you can, you pathetic creep; you're going to die!'

I wasn't breathing alright, but that didn't stop me from smiling. She was mesmerizing even when threatening to kill me – and in my broken-down mind this was beautiful and right, and a part of me – to my own astonishment – shuddered with excitement at the thought of her doing it, even though in her hand the wand felt like nothing but a piece of wood...

'Say your prayers... if anyone's willing to hear them,' she hissed, and repeated: 'You're a dead man –'

'You're not doing it right,' I advised through the blissful mixture of emotional intoxication and loss of blood. I saw her grit her teeth, I heard her cackle.

'Oh, really? Well, maybe I need to learn from you!'

My wand stuck beneath my chin, I shook my head. 'No... I can't... I've never – killed a person in my life...'

I was feeling the heat of her rage, the beating of her heart, the force of her madness... and I felt all of this freeze in an instant. When I next glanced up, she was no less furious, but the wand wavered in her hand.

'You expect me to believe this,' she fired, 'after all this time you've been deceiving me? Oh no, Death Eater, it's _you_ who'll be getting a taste of death this time!'

She attempted to press harder, but her lips uttered no killing curse.

'You won't – kill me,' I choked out. I wasn't bargaining, I was merely stating. I'd never been so honest my entire life. 'You're not – ready...'

The girl fixed a murderous stare upon me and her eyes glistened fiery against me. It was a furnace in there.

'Oh, believe me, I want it,' she assured eerily, clutching the wand.

'It takes... a villain... to destroy a villain,' I reminded her. 'You... said it yourself... remember?'

The girl's hand started shaking. She was praying for me to give her a reason, to give her the slightest push off the edge...

'Don't you tell me what I've said!' she spat out, and I heard her voice was shaking, too. '

'You're no villain... you don't know what it's like... to take a life...'

'There's a first time for everything,' she persisted. But I knew that she could never mean it. I was falling in love with her over and over by the second.

'No... you don't get it... I've tried. I've had to... my parents' lives were at stake, but I couldn't... It's not something you can learn... Sometimes you're just not... cut out for it...'

'I'll cut your numb little heart out, you hear me?' she roared above me, and tears started racing down her cheeks as well. 'How can you live with yourself? You... you... you _monster_! I'll rip you open like all of your fellow psychos' victims! I'll –'

'You should' I whispered dreamily. 'But you won't. Because –'

'Shut up!' the girl cried desperately, once again throwing fist after fist in my chest. 'Shut up!'

It was a cry chilling, excruciated, tormented. She wanted me gone more than anything, but she was afraid to let go of the little humanity she had left...

'– because,' I felt compelled to go on, '_I_ know the face of a villain when I see one; I know it as well as I know my own. I grew up amongst them. I was raised by them.'

The mudblood was dumbstruck and petrified. She had frozen in the moment before the kill, not knowing the moment was light years away...

'My parents are Death Eaters,' I continued my confession, no longer burdened by fear. 'I became one because of them. I wasn't given a choice. They taught me everything they could... and it still wasn't enough. I never for the hang of it, you see... For six months, I was tortured by Death Eaters to learn how to – how to do it myself... to do unto others as was done unto me... and I guess something broke... but not with the killing. I was made to watch so many people die... in vain. You just... have to have it in you.'

I was speaking peacefully, stopping only to arrange my words here and there. The mudblood was staring at me in horror. She didn't want to believe what she was hearing, she wanted me to give her yet another reason to hate me, because it would make it easier, and it was already difficult, far too difficult for her...

But she knew I was telling the truth, I could see it in her eyes. At least the bit about my parents she had seen for herself. Now, in her present, stripped of mercy state of mind, she knew what she could believe. The real question, though, was what she wanted to believe...

'How could you do this to me, then?' she raged. She was already shaking all over. 'Knowing what it's _like_? How could you – you deserve to die, you know that? You've no idea what it's like to care!'

'I do,' I disagreed meekly, unafraid of her desperate threats. 'You said I got off on things I didn't understand –'

'Don't you _dare_ tell me what I've said!' she screamed hysterically.

'– but I understand. My parents chose this life for me. They forced me into it when I turned sixteen. I've wanted – I've wanted to quit ever since... but I still stuck with them, through all the torture, through all the dead bodies, all because I loved them, I loved these horrible people, and I did what it took to keep them safe...' Even though I was feeling calm, I sensed new tears flowing down my bloodstained face. 'And I know that it was crazy, but it was dedication... it was a daily sacrifice... And I thought – I thought that was as strong as love gets, because it sure was as bad as it gets... And still I'd leave them both to die in the blink of an eye, because it's all nothing compared to what I'm feeling now...'

I wasn't sure if she was listening. It wasn't important; I just had to pour it out. No more lying; no more secrets... I was now suffocating on tears alone. The mudblood had dropped my wand to the floor. She was muttering frantically, covering her ears.

'I don't want to listen... Why did you do this to me... Why did you do this to me...' she kept repeating in between the sobs.

'Because it was the only way to get you out of there alive,' I answered. 'I had to put their suspicions to sleep. They were using you to get to me. And I – I needed you alive –'

'What for?' the girl screeched, and her hands clasped around my throat again. 'To make me suffer even more? What did I ever do to you? Why couldn't you just kill me and _be done with it_?'

I didn't know what to tell her. I longed to tell her everything: that I had wanted to run away all along, that she had rescued me, she had taken me away from all of this, she had saved my soul... and that, in these few moments we had shared, I had been perfectly true, and I loved her to the point of insanity – but these were all statements she would never believe...

'Why did you lie to me?' she asked, somewhat reconciled and hollow. 'Why did you take advantage of me? Why did you pretend that you _cared_?!'

Her words evolved into a wail, coarse and dry. She was on the verge of falling apart. And, being the villain, despite knowing the truth would destroy her, I said:

'I didn't.'

She didn't want to listen. She didn't even want to look at me.

'How can you say this to me?' she whispered, her voice dripping madness and disgust.

'I mean it,' I uttered in response. 'You know – you know that... that through all this time of war and fear and torture... you were the only person... to ask me if I was alright...'

Without intending for it, I realized I had burst out crying. And it only made the girl despise me even more. She was the one who had the right to cry, not the bad guy...

'Beg,' she suddenly said icily. She grabbed the wand again with renewed malice and pointed it, this time firmly, to my throat.

'Beg, I said,' she repeated implacably. 'Beg, or I swear I'll kill you where you lie!'

'What?' I blurted out, my heart heavy at the sight of her inner torment.

'Are you deaf? _BEG_!' she shrieked at me from the bottom of her lungs. 'Beg for your life, damn you! Beg me for forgiveness! I WANT TO HEAR YOU _BEG_, YOU SON OF A BITCH!'

Her fists were slamming wildly against my ribcage. I was completely lost for words. Beg for my life? Beg for forgiveness? I deserved to be granted neither. And, after all of this, she was so good to me... She was the exception to the rule. She was the one who would spare a begging Death Eater. And, the way she had just prayed for a reason to finish me off, she was now begging me to convince her to give it up...

'Please,' I spoke to her softly, as if to a frightened animal, 'don't become one of the bad guys...'

Her face was twisted and swollen with the restless flow of the tears, she was gagging on them, losing her breath... and she still looked so beautiful to me...

'Beg for forgiveness,' she sobbed out, looking me in the eye. I hesitated.

'I don't deserve –'

'_BEG_!' she roared, and collapsed over my chest.

And I felt her heart madly skipping, I felt all of her pain and desperation, I felt her tears soaking my clothes and her frail figure pressing against me, and I realized that this was no time to play the hero or the villain. The past couldn't be undone, but there was a choice to be made now. And I cold either waste time trying to figure out what the right thing to do was, or simply choose to save a life instead...

Slowly, with extreme caution, I reached out and embraced her as she lay weak upon me.

'Lie to me,' she whispered through the sobs. 'Tell me that it's going to be alright...'

It then dawned on me, through the haze of the blood loss, through the bitter memories of all recent events. She was damaged. She was broken. But most of all, she was alone in all of this. Sometimes, when your world is falling apart, you just want to hold on to someone, but there are no heroes around, and you end up holding on to the one who's hurt you the most. I had been doing this all my life...

...but I was through with being the villain.

'I won't lie to you,' I said. 'No more. I never wanted to lie to you... I I never wanted to harm you... I just – wanted – to keep you safe from me...'

I paused, waiting for her reaction. For a while, I heard nothing but her inconsolable weeping.

'I wasn't lying about my favorite colour,' I went on, fighting back my own sobs. 'I wasn't lying on the swings. And I – wasn't lying – when we –'

I broke off. I couldn't go through with that sentence. 'You – can check... give me Veritaserum... This r-room can provide... You could –'

'Beg for forgiveness,' she spoke to my ear almost soothingly.

'I don't deserve to be given your forgiv–'

'But I do,' she interrupted me unexpectedly. She looked up at me, and I saw her eyes, sore and tired, and imploring, like on that night when she'd been scared of being alone. 'Do you still not get it? I'm not doing it for you.'

Her tears were dripping salty on my lips. She was shaking like a leaf above me... and I finally understood I had got it all wrong. All this time, I had viewed her as the other side, my exact opposite, everything that I wasn't – and I had remained blind to all the ways in which we were alike.

'I'm the bad guy,' I began with a heavy heart. 'But I don't want to be... and maybe I'm the worst one there is, but I know the difference between right and wrong, and that – that's better than nothing, right? And if – if you ask me what it is, I know that right is where you are, and wrong is – wrong is every other direction... So if – so if I'm so evil, how come I'm so drawn towards the light?'

Her breathing was gradually calming at my words, but she wouldn't rest until she heard the ones she needed.

'Beg for forgiveness,' she uttered. I could no longer resist her plea. She was right: I didn't deserve her forgiveness, but _she_ deserved to give it to me. She needed me to be forgiven. Otherwise there would be nobody else. I took a deep breath and met her beseeching eyes.

'I'm sorry,' I choked out my confession, 'for breaking your heart.'

In response, she smiled a crooked smile my way.

'It'll pass,' she managed, loosening her grip on the wand. I raised a trembling hand to her cheek to brush the endless tears away.

'No... I want to spend the rest of my life mending it. Piece by piece, and I will do all it takes, I'll stop for nothing, even if it takes forever... and when it's finally whole, I'll defend it with my life, with my parents' life, with the life of anyone who stands in the way of your peace...'

I was looking in her eyes as she anxiously listened to me. I couldn't read her. I couldn't even imagine what she was going through. All I knew was that, if there was a way to do her yet more wrong, it was to leave her alone to face the horror of it.

'Why?' she posed a simple question. She no longer had the strength to fight; she wanted a friend, not an enemy. I wrapped my arms around her trembling body, I enveloped her in my embrace, to keep her warm, to to keep her safe from harm.

'Can't you see?' I mumbled in response to her sad porcelain face. 'You're the colour of sunlight.'

At these words of mine, I expected her to cry 'till the end of the world, and in the name of all things holy, I knew she wanted to, but she just clung quietly to me instead. Only then did I venture to feel her, to inhale her lovely scent, to rejoice at the touch of her body – and I felt her body wanted to be close to me regardless of what her mind had to say. In a way, there was a strange madness burning within her. Then again, maybe it was meant to be there... for who in their right mind would give someone like me a chance? And, on the other hand, who, if not someone like me, could understand her so completely?

The mudblood cuddled desperately in my arms, and I could no longer resist the call of her heart and body, the silent plea of her skin to be touched, and I felt a wave of warmth come over me and I couldn't control myself, and I lavished her face in comforting kisses: her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids... I felt her relax over me, light and soft as a feather; I felt her arms around me, I felt her sweet-scented hair upon my face. And when her lips, salty with the tears, took the minute distance to mine – the greatest distance in the entire world, – I moaned, because I sensed a huge burden falling off her chest...

Heaven knows I tried to stop, but I couldn't. My kissed rained over her skin, wiping away blood and tears inch by inch. I was back in her good graces, back in her arms, and I was tasting away every bit of sorrow she'd had to go through because of me. I took layer after layer of hurting off her skin. The colour of blood was all around us; blood was smearing all over our bodies, but I was blind to that colour. Her breathing went deeper and steadier, her tears subsides and the remains of them I kissed away. It could have taken hours; it could have taken days, I could never tell. All I knew was I didn't have the right to stop.

And, however long it took, all of it melted into one moment in which I was buried in her hair and skin, softly dragging my lips against her face and legs and tummy... I put my love into the surface o her flesh tenderly and patiently and ceaselessly, until the excitement drowned out every heavy thought and memory and we were stripped of our sorrows, of our past, of all pretense, locked inseparably in a bubble of blissful insanity...

When my lips traced the inside of her thighs and slid towards her most intimate folds, a delicate groan tore from her throat, as if we'd turned back time a day earlier.

'Damn you,' she exhaled, although there wasn't a trace of damnation in her voice. 'Damn you, baby...'

'That's right,' I encouraged her softly in between the kisses, and I did so sincerely, without a scrap of irony, without a scrap of allure. 'Curse me... because deep down you know that I'm the only one...'

She responded with a moan, and I knew by the sound of it she wanted me wholly, mind and body, villain and hero, virtue and vice... and with her desire and permission encoded into the shudders of her body, I conducted my love into her through my lips until she poured her love into me, until she could no longer hold it in...

...and in that precious moment, we were whole. Despite the unfathomable harshness of reality, we were melting into each other on instinct, letting every dark thought to the last one flee from our minds. We had soared above the darkness. We were swinging.

And, through the black veil of the storm clouds, I could see the light.


	8. VIII

_VIII. _

Back then, I didn't know my parents would survive. I didn't know I'd spend the remainder of the war in the Room of Requirement, nor did I know the outcome of it would be in favor of the good guys and, eventually, all sins would be forgiven, except the ones we couldn't forgive ourselves.

I didn't know how the story would end. I didn't know that, years from then, I'd feel very nearly normal, I'd be happy, and I'd have the mudblood by my side. I didn't know I'd succeed at making her happy, too. I knew, however, that it would not happen quickly or easily. And I knew that I'd be there, no matter what.

I knew this much back then. I knew I loved her, and I knew I owed every bit of good in me to her, to her benevolence, dedication and her inexplicable faith in me.

Today, I still don't know much more, to be honest. But I know what I am and what I'm not; I know how to tell between the two, between dark and light, and all the other colours – all thanks to the colour of sunlight... the light in her eyes. There is a blistering mass of fire behind them, but to me, that fire is the source of life itself, for all I know.

Now, of course, I also know her name.

And I'll never forget it.


End file.
